RAPID: Environmental impacts of Cyclone Pam on Vanuatu: implications for long-term cyclone and tsunami records for the South Pacific

RAPID：气旋帕姆对瓦努阿图的环境影响：对南太平洋长期气旋和海啸记录的影响

• 批准号: 1545619
• 负责人: Jessica Pilarczyk
• 金额: $ 2.18万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-01 至 2016-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1545619&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Environmental; impacts; Cyclone; Pam

RAPID: SEDIMENTARY RECORD OF CYCLONE PAM FROM VANUATU: IMPLICATIONS FOR LONG-TERM CYCLONE AND TSUNAMI RECORDS FOR THE SOUTH PACIFICThis proposal is a co-funding effort between the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology Program/EAR and the East Asia and Pacific Program/OISE/IIA.Nontechnical explanation of the project:Land-falling tropical cyclones (TCs) pose an economic and environmental hazard to coastlines of the South Pacific, however, little is known about their long-term variability. The uncertainty surrounding TC hazards in this region was tragically underscored on 6 March 2015 when TC Pam, one of the most intense storms to impact the South Pacific, made landfall on Vanuatu as a Category 5 cyclone. Records of past cyclones, developed from the sedimentary deposits they leave behind, improve our understanding of processes and frequency by expanding the age range of events to include centennial and millennial timescales. However, one of the major obstacles associated with using sedimentary deposits to reconstruct reliable records of past storms is that sediments deposited by land-falling TCs can often be confused with those deposited by tsunamis. PIs will address this obstacle by comparing the impact and associated sedimentary deposits of TC Pam and the 2009 South Pacific tsunami. This study is an important step towards improving the assessment of hazard risk for coastlines that are vulnerable to both forms of marine inundation.Technical description of the project:PIs developed a unique opportunity to compare the impacts of a known storm (TC Pam on Vanuatu in 2015) and tsunami (South Pacific tsunami in 2009) in a region where the event record is fragmentary and incomplete. A comparison of the impact of TC Pam and the 2009 South Pacific tsunami (previously documented by members of the team) enables an assessment of two extreme events of similar magnitude, but different genesis. To carry out this comparison PIs will rapidly dispatch a four-person survey team to the islands that sustained the greatest impact (Efate and Tanna in Vanuatu). They will collect vital physical characteristics of the cyclone?s storm surge (e.g., surge height, inundation distance) and its associated sedimentary deposits (e.g., lithology, thickness, spatial extent). Through detailed stratigraphic, grain size, and micropaleontological (foraminiferal taxonomy and taphonomy) analyses PIs aim to identify differences in the sedimentary deposits emplaced by these events and that these differences can be used to improve hazard assessment for coastlines impacted by both forms of marine inundation.

快速：来自瓦努阿图的气旋帕姆的沉积记录：对南太平洋气旋和海啸长期记录的影响本提案是沉积地质和古生物学计划/EAR和东亚和太平洋计划/OISE/IIA共同资助的成果。该项目的非技术解释：登陆的热带气旋（TCs）对南太平洋海岸线造成经济和环境危害，然而，人们对其长期变化性知之甚少。2015年3月6日，影响南太平洋的最强烈风暴之一“热带风暴帕姆”以5级气旋的形式登陆瓦努阿图，悲剧地凸显了该地区围绕热带风暴危害的不确定性。过去的气旋记录，从它们留下的沉积物中发展出来，通过扩大事件的年龄范围，包括百年和千年的时间尺度，提高了我们对过程和频率的理解。然而，使用沉积沉积物重建过去风暴的可靠记录的主要障碍之一是，由陆地降落的tc沉积的沉积物经常与海啸沉积的沉积物相混淆。pi将通过比较TC Pam的影响和相关的沉积沉积物与2009年南太平洋海啸来解决这一障碍。这项研究是朝着改善易受两种形式的海洋淹没影响的海岸线的灾害风险评估迈出的重要一步。项目技术描述：在一个事件记录零碎且不完整的地区，PIs开发了一个独特的机会来比较已知风暴（2015年瓦努阿图的帕姆热带风暴）和海啸（2009年南太平洋海啸）的影响。通过比较帕姆海啸和2009年南太平洋海啸的影响（该小组成员以前记录过），可以对两个量级相似但成因不同的极端事件进行评估。为了进行这一比较，警务司将迅速派遣一个四人调查小组前往受影响最大的岛屿（瓦努阿图的埃法特岛和塔纳岛）。他们会收集气旋的重要物理特征？S风暴潮（如风暴潮高度、淹没距离）及其伴生沉积（如岩性、厚度、空间范围）。通过详细的地层学、粒度学和微古生物学（有孔虫分类学和地层学）分析，PIs旨在确定这些事件所造成的沉积沉积物的差异，这些差异可以用来改善受两种形式的海洋淹没影响的海岸线的危害评估。